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Cubic Corporation has established “Cubic Transportation Systems” to
embark on the dynamic Indian-regional market with a five-month smart
card-based fare collection trial aboard buses in Delhi. Pursuing
automated fare collection systems and services business throughout the
country and provide software development support for transportation
projects worldwide, Cubic installed and integrated its smart card
technology aboard new low-floor air-conditioned buses on one of the many
bus routes operated by the Delhi Transport Corporation. With this, Cubic
provided approximately 5,000 smart cards, smart card validators and an
open-architecture Driver Control Unit processing platform that
integrates automatic fare collection (AFC) and intelligent
transportation system applications, such as GPS-based vehicle tracking,
passenger counting and security systems.

Integrated credit processor Custom Credit Systems has released its “2009 State of Commercial Lending Survey”. Ninety percent of respondents have seen an increase in small business loans, mostly between 1 and 50%. Respondents unanimously agreed that technology is a major component for helping their financial institutions maneuver through current economic challenges with more than half of the respondents cited that their commercial lending process is less than 50% automated. Respondents all use at least four different systems to process and manage one commercial loan from beginning to end, with 45% of them using upwards of seven systems. Lack of integration with internal systems was considered the largest impediment to the banks’ current commercial loan processing solutions, closely followed by multiple points of date entry. Internal compliance, work flow management and flexibility concerns were also high ranking challenges and 70% of respondents plan to make changes to data security over the next twelve months, while the remaining 30% will not. None of the banks surveyed noted being in the midst of changes.

Permata Bankhas is set to deploy Hypercom’s “Optimum T4200” payment
terminals as part of the bank’s nationwide Mini-ATM rollout. Expected to
begin next month, the first phase of the multicity rollout will consist
of more than 500 co-branded terminals ordered and supported by Hypercom
value-added reseller PT Multi Adiprakarsa Manunggal (“Kartuku”). The
Mini-ATMs are to be installed at participating retail locations to
enable the bank’s customers to complete more than 100 types of
transactions, including paying bills ranging from utility, insurance and
credit card bills, and purchasing goods and services, such as airline
tickets and mobile phone pre-paid vouchers. Permata Bank has more than
269 branch offices in 57 cities.

TransUnion has released its national year-end 2010 credit card delinquency rate forecasts that indicate the nation will experience a third straight year-over-year decrease from 1.07% at the end of 2009 to 1.04% at the conclusion of 2010. The projected 2.80% year-over-year decrease is significantly less than the 11% and 11.6% drops seen between 2007 and 2008 and 2008 and 2009, respectively. However, the expected year-end 2010 delinquency rate marks a 23.6% decrease from the same period in 2007 (1.36%). On the credit card front, Arizona is the only state that is expected to see an increase in delinquencies next year, though a very minimal one from 1.33 percent in Q4 2009 to 1.34% in Q4 2010. Eleven states will see 4% or greater decreases in credit card delinquencies, led by Washington D.C. (-8.24%), Mississippi (-6.15%) and Rhode Island (-4.94%). Nevada (1.91%), Florida (1.40%) and Arizona (1.34%) will have the highest credit card delinquency rates at the end of 2010, while North Dakota (0.61%), South Dakota (0.65%) and Alaska (0.67%) are expected to have the lowest levels.

GuestLogix’ PCI compliant XPDA-V POS handheld device with PIN Pad has
received UK Cards Association Common Criteria 2.3 EAL 4 accreditation
for use in the UK and elsewhere. Specializing in onboard retail
solutions to the passenger travel industry, GuestLogix POS is providing
operators greatly improved security over existing mobile POS devices to
reduce credit card fraud and drive lower card processing costs. Carriers
can also enhance customer service by providing more convenient and quick
payment options to their passengers while generating new profitable
revenues by being able to accept higher value credit and debit card
transactions. The UK Cards Association was formed in April 2009 as the
successor body to the APACS Card payments Group to promote co-operation
between industry participants in order to progress non-competitive
matters of mutual interest.

Consumer credit continued its decline as Americans cut another $7 billion off October, bringing the year-to-date total reduction to $69 billion. Posting its 14th consecutive monthly decline, U.S. consumer revolving credit remained well below $900 billion in October. Since peaking at a revised $975.2 billion in the third quarter of last year, Americans have chopped-off more than $97 billion in revolving credit to-date. According to new and revised data released by the Federal Reserve, revolving credit declined at an annual rate of 9.3% in October, following a revised 10.5% decline in September and a 10.6% drop in August. In September revolving credit declined to a revised $895.0 billion and to a revised $903.0 billion in August. March posted the largest contraction over the past nine months, dropping more than $14 billion. Bank credit card debt (excluding store and gas credit cards) at the end of the third quarter was about $710 billion or roughly 85% of total revolving credit, according to CardData (www.carddata.com). Store and gas credit cards had about $105 billion in outstandings at year-end 2008. At the end of October, Americans were $2483 billion in debt, excluding home mortgages.

Helsinki-based Rahaxi international card payments processor and
technology company subsidiary, Rahaxi Processing Oy, has increased the
volume of transactions processed by 29% Y/Y. Transactions jumped from
1,877,292 to 2,404,861 for the month of October and from 1,706,860 to
2,216,729 in November, reflecting the steady increase in POS Hardware
and software solutions deployment to the Finnish domestic market. Rahaxi
provides mission-critical solutions to the financial industry worldwide,
working with merchants and acquirers in more than twenty countries, and
has adopted a partnership strategy for growth with market leaders in
their respective industries.

Javelin Strategy & Research has issued a report evaluating the security
of online customer interaction that reveals that 46% of top banking
institutions have an opportunity to more fully protect âcontact usâ,
âhelpâ, or other interaction pages against criminal hijacking. The
first report, titled “U.S. Online Channel Security: an Assessment of the
24 Top Financial Institutions”, analyzes the home and log-in page
security at the top 24 U.S. financial institutions, for SSL/TLS or
EV-SSL encryption, which are critical security-attributes to guard
against compromise by insertion of incorrect links or information. In
this report Javelin also researched online banking enrollment procedures
for existing customers and examined the protections associated with the
retrieval of lost or forgotten usernames and passwords. Key findings
include: one in five sites uses easy-to-guess authentication information
such as date-of-birth, e-mail addresses, and ZIP codes; just one in four
banks minimizes data exposure by truncating Social Security numbers
during enrollment, with as many providing
alternatives to SSN for enrollment or username and password retrieval;
mystery-shopping research reveals that many banks are struggling with
best practices around sensitive records such as bank account PIN and ATM
numbers; just one in four sites required users to choose a new password
longer than six digits and over nine in ten use generic error messages
when a customerâs login fails, but one in ten still gives specific
information that can be used in a brute force attack. In a companion
report, “Improving Web Application Security Using New 2010 OWASP Top 10
Risk Model: Best Practices for Mitigating Online Vulnerabilities and
Threats” Javelin presents a model that identifies the risks
organizations face today based on the OWASP model. The model
demonstrates how to weigh vulnerabilities under the new system and set
mitigation priorities. The report also integrates the latest attack data
from the Web Hacking Incident Database and compares whatâs happening
with vulnerability data from the Web Application Consortiumâs October
2009 annual report.

Atos Worldline research shows the Customer Relationship Management rules
applied by banks “before the financial crisis” are no longer valid and
the “post-financial crisis” global CRM approach is still rarely
explored. Institutions are subsequently refocusing their CRM strategies
with institutions designing new approaches to regain and reassure
customers and movement towards “refocusing on the customer.” The”win
back trust” strategy shows an optimum balance between financial
investments and the satisfying customers’ needs will generate the
maximum profit on a “customer-centric” approach to improving customer
understanding by getting hold of behavioral/relational characteristics
and identifying and repositioning favorite customer channels according
to their profitability. Atos research concludes if Financial
Institutions want to bring back trust and profit together, they must
first consider repositioning and fine-tune sales channels to increase
their sales efficiency.

Throughout the first three quarters of 2009, 31% of checking direct mail offers promoted rewards for everyday banking, compared to 13% throughout the corresponding period in 2007. This research, according to Mintel Comperemedia direct marketing competitive intelligence, shows Citibankâs “ThankYou Network” rewards program leads the industry in innovation, being heavily promoted in customer mailings as part of its acquisition strategy. Other banks, such as Citizens and KeyBank, offer rewards programs, but they often focus on just one activity, like debit usage, while Capital One allows customers to combine rewards from credit and checking to earn points faster. Mintel Comperemedia provides competitive intelligence for businesses looking to advance and improve their direct marketing strategy.

E-payment provider Vesta has been selected by pay-as-you-go mobile
communication provider Cricket to manage customer payments.
Vestaâs payment service will manage customer payments via the phone, Web
and in Cricketâs own retail stores. In addition, Vesta is expected to
introduce additional services such as text-to-pay and SMS payment
solutions for Cricket customers and enable
all customer transactions to be completed in a secure, convenient
environment. Vestaâs technology is also fully PCI Data Security Standard
(PCI
DSS)-compliant. The program is scheduled to launch Spring 2010.